Wireless data services and the communication systems that support wireless data services represent a rapidly growing and increasingly important segment of the communications industry. The growth in wireless data services has been spurred by the rapid growth and development of the paging industry and increasing customer demand for advanced paging and short messaging services (SMS). In order to provide the wireless data services requested by customers, the communications industry has strived to effectively utilize existing wireless communication systems and future generations of these wireless communications systems by incorporating wireless data services into these existing wireless communications systems and future generations thereof (e.g., wireless voice communication systems such as mobile radio and cellular networks).
Instant Messaging (IM) has emerged as an efficient fixed-line data service that can be incorporated into wireless communications system and future generations thereof and has also been expanded to operate with numerous wireless devices. IM provides the ability of wireless subscribers that use wireless devices to send short messages without the delay generally associated with electronic mail (i.e., e-mail) messages. However, a significant amount of duplicate information is currently transmitted to wireless devices during IM communication sessions and the wireless communications systems generally have a limited bandwidth and unnecessary utilization of bandwidth is undesirable. Therefore, the information transmitted and received by a wireless device during an IM communication session is preferably minimized to reduce and effectively utilize the bandwidth of a wireless communication system in an IM communication session.
In view of the foregoing, it can be appreciated that it would be desirable to provide methods for providing IM in a wireless communication system (e.g., wireless voice communication system and/or wireless data communication system). In addition, it can be appreciated that it would be desirable to provide an apparatus for providing IM with a wireless device in a wireless communication system. Furthermore, additional desirable features will become apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art from the following detailed description of a preferred exemplary embodiment and appended claims.